Thursday, July 28, 2016

Where the mandala leads, Part 2

In April of last year I wrote a post with this same title, minus the "Part 2." At the time, I was preparing to lead my first mandala yoga workshop and had rented a room from Inner Vision Yoga, the studio where I practice and also receive my yoga teacher training. I'd always had a feeling I'd be teaching in that room in the studio, and having that come to fruition was such an exciting thing for me! Even if I did have to rent the room and promote the workshop on my own, I was so happy about that.

Well, I've lead six workshops since then (two held at Inner Vision), and when I contacted Inner Vision Yoga to see about booking a date for my seventh workshop I assumed it would be like before. I'd pick a date that worked for them, I'd pay the fee for room rental and go about my merry way promoting the workshop and taking care of registration.

Imagine my delight when I received a call from the studio with a request to lead my workshop on their behalf. :o)!!! The studio will promote my workshop, they'll handle all registration and I'll show up with my mandala supplies and lead the workshop. And this time they'll pay me instead of the other way around.

I cried happy tears after I got the call. My mandalas have been life changing for me in so many ways, and it's such an honor to lead workshops where I can share this simple art form and inspire others with these magical circles. The process is so soothing and lovely.

The photos in this post show my progress in creating this mandala...

Sometimes I begin my mandalas using a circle template and the method I shared in this tutorial. And sometimes (most often) I use my compass to lay down some circles and just dive right in.

I drew this mandala with a Sharpie permanent marker, my favorite drawing tool lately. I wanted something that wouldn't bleed when wet because I used watercolor pencils to color this one in.

It's a lot quicker to color in with these watercolor pencils. The entire area doesn't need to be covered because once you wet the color it moves around as paint would.

Most fun part: putting the water on and seeing the colors become so vibrant.

4 comments:

YAY!!! Deb, that is such wonderful news....really....very cool! I only wish I were close enough to attend one of your mandala workshops. This mandala you've displayed in this post is perfection.....I love the watercolors. I can't wait to see how this workshop turns out. I hope you have a big, excited, creative crowd. XOXOXO, Audrey

Congratulations Deb. Sometimes it takes a while for the seeds we have planted to take root & blossom. Let's believe it took a short while because Now is the perfect time. You know where I am with this (wink wink).

Thanks for sharing your step by step process of creating your mandalas - you do make it look easy & like any of us without artist abilities can do this. Oh yes it would be nice if teleporting was a real function, I'd be there in the workshop.